This invention is in the field of trailers and in particular trailers for transporting agricultural harvesting headers.
Agricultural harvest headers are used at the front end of various kinds of harvesters, such as combines and swathers, for cutting crops for harvest. These headers typically include a knife assembly to cut the crop, a bed to receive the cut material, and a reel to force the standing crop plants into the knife and then onto the bed. As with virtually all agricultural equipment, harvesters have become larger and the headers that feed the harvesters have become wider. Driving a harvester with the header attached anything but a very short distance on a road is therefore not feasible, as the headers block the road completely.
Other very wide agricultural equipment is designed to fold to a much narrower width for transport, however harvest headers are quite complex with many moving parts and so designing them to fold is problematic. It is therefore known to place the header on a trailer, detached from the harvester, and carried lengthwise down the road.
To detach the header from a typical harvester, the harvester moves toward the trailer bed with the header raised and maneuvers the header into position over the trailer bed and then lowers the header onto the bed. Various latches, drives, hose connections, electrical wiring connections, and the like must be disconnected in a typical modern harvester in order to detach the header, and once disconnected the harvester is moved away and the header resting on the trailer bed is secured to the trailer bed.
A problem arises with some types of harvest implements, notably self-propelled swathers, because lift arms extend forward under the header to support the header. These lift arms contact the various parts of the trailer bed when the swather moves the header over the trailer bed to drop the header, making it awkward and difficult to place the swather header onto the bed.
Since harvest headers are of various types, and also vary in their structure depending on the manufacturer it is desirable to provide some adjustability so that the trailer can be adapted to carry a variety of headers. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,040,825 and 5,333,904 to Kuhns disclose a combine header trailer that includes a variety of adjustable support brackets to support the header on the trailer. U.S. Pat. No. 6,047,989 to Wood discloses a header trailer that is adjustable for carrying different types of grain headers. U.S. Pat. No. 5,785,472 to Smith shows a header wagon with adjustments allowing same to carry different equipment, such as a corn header and a grain header.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,428,047 to Kaderabek discloses combine header transport that rotates the header to a generally vertical orientation to reduce the travel width of the header on the trailer.